A Wanderer in Venice eBook

The stern building at the corner of this bridge is
the prison, with accommodation for over two hundred
prisoners. Leaning one day over the Ponte di
Paglia I saw one being brought in, in a barca with
a green box—­as we should say, a Black and
Green Maria. I cannot resist quoting Coryat’s
lyrical passage in praise of what to most of us is
as sinister a building as could be imagined.
“There is near unto the Dukes Palace a very
faire prison, the fairest absolutely that ever I saw,
being divided from the Palace by a little channell
of water, and againe joyned unto it by a merveilous
faire little gallery that is inserted aloft into the
middest of the Palace wall East-ward. [He means the
Bridge of Sighs.] I thinke there is not a fairer prison
in all Christendome: it is built with very faire
white ashler stone, having a little walke without the
roomes of the prison which is forty paces long and
seven broad.... It is altogether impossible for
the prisoners to get forth.”

The next important building is the famous hotel known
as Danieli’s, once a palace, which has its place
in literature as having afforded a shelter to those
feverish and capricious lovers, George Sand and Alfred
de Musset. Every one else has stayed there too,
but these are the classic guests. If you want
to see what Danieli’s was like before it became
a hotel you have only to look at No. 940 in the National
Gallery by Canaletto. This picture tells us also
that the arches of the Doges’ Palace on the
canal side were used by stall-holders. To-day
they are merely a shelter from sun or rain and a resting-place,
and often you may see a gondolier eating his lunch
there. In this picture of Canaletto’s,
by the way, the loafers have gathered at the foot of
the Lion’s column exactly as now they do, while
the balcony of the great south window of the palace
has just such a little knot of people enjoying the
prospect; but whether they were there naturally or
at the invitation of a custodian eager for a tip (as
now) we shall not know.

The first calle after Danieli’s brings us to
S. Zaccaria, one of the few Venetian churches with
any marble on its facade. S. Zaccaria has no
longer the importance it had when the Doge visited
it in state every Easter. It is now chiefly famous
for its very beautiful Bellini altar-piece, of which
I give a reproduction on the opposite page. The
picture in its grouping is typical of its painter,
and nothing from his hand has a more pervading sweetness.
The musical angel at the foot of the throne is among
his best and the bland old men are more righteous
than rectitude itself. To see this altar-piece
aright one must go in the early morning: as I
did on my first visit, only to find the central aisle
given up to a funeral mass.